Gear with Price Tags that Make Your Jaw Drop

I thought this might be a fun random thread. Inspired by @MBroadus realizing that cartridges can get upwards of $5K.

Obviously this thread will be full of fun snake oil things, so let's play nice. Poking fun is different than hating on something someone really believes in, keep that in mind here. This also will be a great thread for drool worthy gear we all wish we had unlimited funds for. Even if you have a $100K system, it doesn't mean you don't want a different insane system to add a little spice to life.

So let's see it, what are the things that looked cool right up until you saw the price tag? Or things that you think look silly, and then looked extra silly when you saw the price.

I'll kick it off with a few things:
Focal Grande Utopia EM EVO look amazing... if I wanted to make a clean trade for my house.

And that I discovered Wilson Audio...
"Entry Level" starting TuneTot starting just under $10K

Moving all the way up to the WAMM coming in at nearly $700K.

I figure for these big boys I'd probably need to go ahead and sell my car to get appropriate speaker cable as well.

I thought this might be a fun random thread. Inspired by @MBroadus realizing that cartridges can get upwards of $5K.

Obviously this thread will be full of fun snake oil things, so let's play nice. Poking fun is different than hating on something someone really believes in, keep that in mind here. This also will be a great thread for drool worthy gear we all wish we had unlimited funds for. Even if you have a $100K system, it doesn't mean you don't want a different insane system to add a little spice to life.

So let's see it, what are the things that looked cool right up until you saw the price tag? Or things that you think look silly, and then looked extra silly when you saw the price.

I'll kick it off with a few things:
Focal Grande Utopia EM EVO look amazing... if I wanted to make a clean trade for my house.

And that I discovered Wilson Audio...
"Entry Level" starting TuneTot starting just under $10K

Moving all the way up to the WAMM coming in at nearly $700K.

I figure for these big boys I'd probably need to go ahead and sell my car to get appropriate speaker cable as well.

Click to expand...

Honestly. If I was spending 100k or 700k on floorstanders I’d have wanted them to employ someone for aesthetics. Both of those insanely priced floorstanders are amongst the ugliest things I could imagine, even if I could afford them they wouldn’t be coming near my house!

Honestly. If I was spending 100k or 700k on floorstanders I’d have wanted them to employ someone for aesthetics. Both of those insanely priced floorstanders are amongst the ugliest things I could imagine, even if I could afford them they wouldn’t be coming near my house!

A number of the more beautiful horn speakers are like this. Some look so simple you would think the cost is in the realm of reality. Nope.
Worth it? You can't define worth at this point but it is an incredible achievement.

It's pretty but if we're going to do this in a properly spendy way, we're going to need one of these;

This is an Audio Note Io Ltd and it costs somewhere in the region of £15,000. Without extras.

You will note that on the back it has six pins instead of four. This is because it doesn't have installed magnets and instead uses field coils- reportedly the smallest production field coils in the world. These require an external PSU but generate a performance that is utterly otherwordly. Of course, you need to budget for a supply for the coils (the best seem to be battery operated) and a phono stage that can work with it. This is harder than it sounds because the output is 0.02mV so you need a fair bit of gain.

I love the wood theme we're taking on here. I'd imagine there are some extremely high end phonostages, preamps, and mono blocks with some wood casings or at least wood face plates. Some tubes might fit well with our million dollar aesthetic. Because at these prices, I shouldn't be restricted to metal, how else would my system sound natural?

I love the wood theme we're taking on here. I'd imagine there are some extremely high end phonostages, preamps, and mono blocks with some wood casings or at least wood face plates. Some tubes might fit well with our million dollar aesthetic. Because at these prices, I shouldn't be restricted to metal, how else would my system sound natural?

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You see, I don't entirely disagree but some things are made from materials that aren't wood but are made of things are ridiculously cool.

Case in point, the Wilson Benesch Nanotube One

That name isn't for show. It was the first series production item in the world to use a carbon nanotube infused fibre weave. That taper in the arm length is face meltingly hard to do. The calculations for trying to achieve the same strength to mass calculations in metal are alarming.

Of course, that hasn't stopped someone trying;

The Vertere Reference is made from titanium. In fact the entire tube, headshell and front bearing hub are machined from one single billet of titanium. The £20,000+ cost is reflected in the fact that milling it out (and drilling the tube) tends to be quite destructive on tooling...

To be clear, I love wood too but I also love the balls out application of technology which is often otherwise solely the preserve of unpleasant war machines for the purposes of making music. It makes me hope we won't wind up turning each other to ash.

If we are going with the Audio Note and wood combo, I don’t know if the Wilsons are the best bet. Maybe shoot for something with a bit higher efficiency? If you’re set on the transformer looking Wilson’s though, these are a natural fit:

Pivetta Opera Only, Just trade in your spare helicopter (or three) for it. Use the choppers first to get it in your penthouse as it weighs over 3,000 lbs.

You see, I don't entirely disagree but some things are made from materials that aren't wood but are made of things are ridiculously cool.

Case in point, the Wilson Benesch Nanotube One

That name isn't for show. It was the first series production item in the world to use a carbon nanotube infused fibre weave. That taper in the arm length is face meltingly hard to do. The calculations for trying to achieve the same strength to mass calculations in metal are alarming.

Of course, that hasn't stopped someone trying;

The Vertere Reference is made from titanium. In fact the entire tube, headshell and front bearing hub are machined from one single billet of titanium. The £20,000+ cost is reflected in the fact that milling it out (and drilling the tube) tends to be quite destructive on tooling...

To be clear, I love wood too but I also love the balls out application of technology which is often otherwise solely the preserve of unpleasant war machines for the purposes of making music. It makes me hope we won't wind up turning each other to ash.

Click to expand...

No reason we can't plan a an appropriate wood based system to fit one room (I'm thinking fairy tail library) and an ultra modern exotic metals/materials system for another listening room.

Because if everything has a slightly different sound, and an obviously different look, I'm going to dream up matching my systems to fit the look and sound of the aesthetic of every room.

That single titanium billet arm is crazy though. I prefer the looks factor of the nanotube, but I would have never guessed that arm was all one piece.

Ironically, the Living Voice speakers I posted earlier are designed for this sort of thing- they have a posted sensitivity of 106dB/w... Of course the man who builds them is the distributor of the divorced spouse of Audio Note, a company called Kondo. As such, he'd probably prefer their GakuOn...;

I have to be honest, as the Vox Olympian is so sensitive, I'd save $200,000 (really) and go with the AirTight ATM-211

It is honestly one of the single most perfectly made things I've ever seen. And nearly killed myself unboxing.